Reports from Cuba: Impossible Zone of Peace

Impossible Zone of Peace

HAVANA, Cuba – In the last several hours the Castro propaganda campaign has come to a climax on the occasion of the Second Summit of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States, which will be held in Havana between today and tomorrow. Of course this focus is justified if we consider the swaddling this event implies for the totalitarian regime in Havana.

Meanwhile, the independent press informs us about the intense reservation exercised by the Castro government against all of society. Even beggars and pimps have been affected by the delirium of the conclave. Many of them are warned that, during the great event, they should abstain from exercising their ancient craft.

On a slightly more serious note, it should be remembered that several documents have been agreed to within the CELAC framework. In one of them, dating from just a year ago, it reiterates that this Community is based on, among other things, “the protection and promotion of all human rights, the rule of law at the national and international level and democracy.” Can anyone believe these beautiful words are compatible with the regime imposed in Cuba by the Castro brothers?

Of course not. But the totalitarians usually get by with ease. We have the experience of the clauses about freedoms and pluralism adopted years ago by the Ibero-American Summit in Viña del Mar. With to what was agreed to there, the Havana authorities commented: The documents signed by Cuba we interpret according to our own conception of democracy. And problem solved!

The fact of the matter lies in that the governments of our cultural environment, who for the most part respect Human Rights internally, don’t allow among their members a regime that systematically violates them like that of Havana, but they even selected it to preside and host its meetings, as is happening now with the CELAC Summit in Havana. Its fig leaf is the supposed “uniqueness of Cuba.”

In the interim, Cuban authorities do a disservice to those democratic states. We hope the world press and the internal press of those countries report on the fierce repression unleashed in the Great Antille; in this case, the respective governments confront certain difficulties. Serves them right! For having tried to patronize the only totalitarian regime in the West.

At the same time, in the context of the Summit, Castro spokespeople have recalled the words spoken by General-President Raul Castro in South Africa: “Dialog and cooperation are the way to solve differences and the civilized coexistence of those who think differently.” Events show that this is proclaimed (and applied) in relations between states, not between the totalitarian regime and its subjects.

Meanwhile, Deputy Foreign Minister Abelardo Moreno, told the newspaper Granma a supposed new important aspect of the Havana Summit: “We believe that another contribution is the proclamation of Latin America and the Caribbean as a Zone of Peace. This is a proposal that we hope will be adopted during the 2nd Summit by its 33 member countries.”

That’s the way it is! And I thought that CELAC had already solved this in the Declaration of Santiago, agreed on in Chile a year ago! Its Point 14 establishes: “We commit that the climate of peace that prevails in Latin America and the Caribbean be strengthened throughout our region and consolidated in a Zone of Peace, and which differences among nations are resolved in a peaceful way through dialog and negotiation or other forms of solution, and fully consistent with International Law.”

Meanwhile, Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez Parrilla, at a press conference, affirmed that in Cuban there is no need to hold a summit of the peoples, as is generally held in other latitudes on similar occasions. For him this is because, according to what he said, the delegations meeting in Havana represent the governments as well as the masses.

The minister didn’t say what principles of Bolshevik alchemy apply now to make this happen. Surprisingly, such a thing doesn’t happen when these meetings are held in other sites, where, in the opinion of the radical left, it is necessary that in parallel to the official meetings, there is a Summit of the peoples.